Conventional methods of printing as ink jet and screen printing have limitations of feature size and even more critical limitations of the kind of materials that can be printed in a repeatable, sustainable manner and with controlled quality.
There are many printing processes in the industry that are conducted over several sets of equipment thus limiting simplicity, accuracy, and quality of the printed platform. The integration between such systems is expensive from the aspect of resources and processes required to achieve adequate results.
Methods of LIFT are well known in research and in the industry. LIFT consists of a transparent substrate coated with a thin film of material to be transferred (the “donor”), which is facing a receiver substrate, (the “acceptor”). A laser pulse locally induces a thermal excitation that finally results in material transfer towards the acceptor.
The LIFT method can be used to transfer a rather large number of different materials, e.g. copper, nickel, aluminum, and chrome. In recent years laser transfer of liquid droplets was investigated both theoretically and experimentally with special emphasis on bio-materials. The main problem of LIFT technology, essentially used in academic research center, is the complexity of the LIFT system, including (i) the Laser manipulation; (ii) the donor holding and supplying. This invention overcome this inconvenience and complexity and brings LIFT means and method to industrial use.
Printing solutions and specifically industrial printing solutions are executed in many stages as material preparation, exposure and patterning, drying, sintering and other. In existing solutions these various activities are performed on various types of equipment in a production line. This invention further brings a comprehensive solution that equips several technologies built to be integrated on a single platform.
In medical devices, conventional systems for material application introduction and otherwise distribution, such as micropipettes have limitations of droplet size, and even more critical limitations of the kind of materials that can be distributed in a repeatable, sustainable manner and with a controlled quality and accuracy.